My Journey To Optimal Health

[Cirion]

Well, my goal is optimal health, not average health. Average health requires average level of analysis. Optimal health, however, requires far more than average level of effort. I've been average, well more like below average health, most of my life -- and it isn't until I started looking into things with a finer lens that I started to improve things.

To me optimal health means things such as

-- Restful sleep 90%+ of nights
-- Being pretty lean (but not necessarily six pack, I just want to be able to easily maintain a fairly reasonable BMI/body fat. 15% body fat would probably be OK with me.)
-- Boundless energy to do anything I want, never being restricted by lack of energy
-- Able to do most any workout I want to do (within limits of course, like I have no interest in strongman competitions, marathons etc), great gains in gym
-- Able to cheat on diet sometimes and not feel horrible
-- Strong libido, strong confidence, motivation, ambition in life

Anyway, it's my personality, it's just who I am. I like to dig deep and find out how things work and how to improve them. I do the same things everywhere, including my workplace where I work as an engineer.

 

[milkboi]

Well, my goal is optimal health, not average health. Average health requires average level of analysis. Optimal health, however, requires far more than average level of effort. I've been average, well more like below average health, most of my life -- and it isn't until I started looking into things with a finer lens that I started to improve things.

To me optimal health means things such as

-- Restful sleep 90%+ of nights
-- Being pretty lean (but not necessarily six pack, I just want to be able to easily maintain a fairly reasonable BMI/body fat. 15% body fat would probably be OK with me.)
-- Boundless energy to do anything I want, never being restricted by lack of energy
-- Able to do most any workout I want to do (within limits of course, like I have no interest in strongman competitions, marathons etc), great gains in gym
-- Able to cheat on diet sometimes and not feel horrible
-- Strong libido, strong confidence, motivation, ambition in life

Anyway, it's my personality, it's just who I am. I like to dig deep and find out how things work and how to improve them. I do the same things everywhere, including my workplace where I work as an engineer.

Agreed, the potential health payoff is worth the analysis and even stressing about (tho of course not too much). I don’t think that Cirion is paralyzed, he tries out a lot. Just because he hasn’t seen big success yet, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he never will. I’m optimistic about his approach.

 

[charlie]

I’m optimistic about his approach.

 

[Cirion]

Agreed, the potential health payoff is worth the analysis and even stressing about (tho of course not too much). I don’t think that Cirion is paralyzed, he tries out a lot. Just because he hasn’t seen big success yet, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he never will. I’m optimistic about his approach.

I don't find it stressful most of the time honestly. I would say the only times I stress about it is when I have a particularly bad day where I erred horrendously the day before and feel learned helplessness come back. Other than that, I treat each day as an educational day and usually I actually enjoy looking at my detailed plots and discovering and learning new trends.

You only fail if you quit is my mantra. I like to quote Thomas Edison as at the time, everyone thought he was a failure even his own wife (how depressing is that? lol) but he ended up being one of the most famous men of all time by being the father of the light bulb.

I'll be the first to admit I fail a LOT, haha. But each failure brings with it a new lesson learned until one day, I am hoping to strike gold like Thomas Edison did.

 

[Rand56]

I'll be the first to admit I fail a LOT, haha

Ok fine, and yes success can come from failure, but you do have a habit of claiming you found the holy grail, until you haven't. Also, if I were you, I wouldn't be so quick to give other people advice, which is what you do, when you clearly haven't figured things out for yourself yet.

 

[Spartan300]

I for one am grateful to @Cirion for sharing his journey here.

I don't believe he is instructing anyone what to do, just providing a report on what works and what doesn't for him. The rest of us could learn a lot and implement any/all of it as we see fit.

 

[Cirion]

I make no apologies what I write in my log, as it's basically my world.

As for giving other people advice, I make no apologies for that either since I tend to say "in my opinion" "I think" etc if I'm not sure or "I'm currently experimenting with..." and even have a big disclaimer in my signature.

The only things I speak with authority on are things I am virtually 100% sure of, and can quote not only my own experience but also Georgi/Haidut, Ray Peat, and other big names to corroborate my claims. Some examples lately include sugar is critical for recovery, protein is needed but not too much, especially not muscle meat, too much fat is detrimental, B vitamins and some minerals are crucial, and other things that I can give many personal examples and quotes from RP/Georgi to corroborate.

There are others (I won't name names) that say things with authority that are blatantly 100% false and I try not to do this anymore since I know it can lead people down the wrong path. I think I did do that a bit when I was newer here, but I have indeed tried to tone that down. Example was arguing with someone that said with authority "sugar feeds SIBO and starch does not" is definitely objectively false.

 

[Cirion]

I for one am grateful to @Cirion for sharing his journey here.

I don't believe he is instructing anyone what to do, just providing a report on what works and what doesn't for him. The rest of us could learn a lot and implement any/all of it as we see fit.

I've seen your struggles, hope you figure out your own issues man. This is definitely difficult stuff to figure out.

Yeah my log should not be taken as advice to do, for sure, as its my area where I can screw around, come up with all sorts of hypothesis, and do crazy experiments. But out of all the crazy experiments, hopefully some useful conclusions can be made of them lol.

 

[peateats1]

@Cirion I'm really appreciative of what you write in this log and have learned a lot from your trials, errors, and successes. I hope you continue to post on here! Not sure why you're being attacked. This is your personal log and journey, you should be able to post whatever you want and if others don't like it, they don't have to read it.
Anyway, I just wanted to encourage you to keep going and let you know that you are inspiring and helping people on this forum!

 

[peateats1]

Mornings are still really rough and low temps. Probably going to cut out cheese, and make the jump to fully skim milk (still having a little 2%) to bring the fat count down further, as well as tryptophan (cheese is rich in it). This should help. On the other hand, my weight does seem to be steadily dropping so that's good. Part of it just might be flooding my body with poisonous by products from body fat due to rapidly losing weight. Will start using pyrucet at night only when FAO is naturally highest, so I can block it. I have about 5 more lb to lose at which point I'll almost be the lowest weight I have been since 2018. So, progress is being made. Painfully, but progress is being made.

Congrats on the weight loss!!

 

[Dobbler]

Cirion is your job stressful? What about life in general??

 

[Cirion]

Cirion is your job stressful? What about life in general??

No major life stressors. I think I am just heavily nutrient deficient, probably drained all my B vitamins, magnesium, salt etc. as a result of a stressful life event I did have 2 years ago. Actually, i was starting to recover about a year ago, after my first foray into peat (first half of my log here), but got all worried about just 20-30 lbs I gained and stupidly went on a caloric restricted diet (Last time I will ever do that, let me tell you). That was the final straw to my health, and I've been picking up the pieces ever since. That proved to me that calorie restriction is even more stressful than an emotionally abusive relationship. Crazy, but apparently true. I had begun to actually feel pretty good just a few months into eating Peat-style, but it's taken me over a year, and still not recovered from the calorie restriction. Granted, looking back at it, I made several mistakes going out of the calorie deficit as well, so that definitely increased my recovery time needlessly and also made me gain needless weight. Unfortunately, just being overweight causes stress, even when sedentary as I produce too much lactic acid / FFA's, so it's been an uphill battle for quite some time. The only thing I will say about my job, but its the same with any job almost, that having to be forced to wake up against when I'd like to wake up is not helpful. If i could sleep in every morning and just stroll into work when I please, that would probably help but I can't. I think if I can lose another 20-30 lb or so (carefully, without restricting food) then things will hopefully start moving in the right direction a little easier as being leaner reduces the aromatization, reduces the lactic acid, reduces the FFA's.

 

[Cirion]

Ok, so having some sugared milk at night made zero difference to my waking body temp, so scratch that hypothesis. If anything, made things worse. Well, maybe next time I will try just have sugar and not any protein with it and try that next.

 

[charlie]

Ok, so having some sugared milk at night made zero difference to my waking body temp, so scratch that hypothesis. If anything, made things worse. Well, maybe next time I will try just have sugar and not any protein with it and try that next.

Have you tried the carrot salad?

 

[Cirion]

I haven't in a while but I did buy some raw carrots yesterday and started having carrots themselves at least.

I'm not sure what the deal is. I can not seem to achieve 98+F waking temps without starch. Yet, starch makes me gain weight, so I know they aren't good for me.

Though, I think milk is part of the problem, which I brought back. The problem is milk starts to add up the tryptophan in large quantities. And, my data suggests that I can not achieve 98+F temps without low, low tryptophan. However, I can't go low protein either, but the only way to get acceptable (80-100 gram protein) without meat is to have milk. And just having gelatin for protein doesn't work. And potato is good protein, but is a starch and impedes weight loss.

Basically, FML lol.

Yesterday I looked though and realized the Cod I had was rather high in tryptophan. Maybe I can just double up on gelatin and (slightly) relax on milk to keep protein intake good and lower tryptophan a bit. Honestly, thats probably why the milk at night didn't work. I boosted serotonin via the tryptophan pathway which just drugged me further lol.

 

[mbachiu]

@Cirion have you ever tried Kelj’s advice? It seems like you have a lot of restrictions & if you just let yourself eat what & how much of what you wanted, that might go a long way? Apologies if you have & it is mentioned earlier in this thread. I know you experiment a lot & are always tweaking things, which I really admire.

 

[somuch4food]

Ok, so having some sugared milk at night made zero difference to my waking body temp, so scratch that hypothesis. If anything, made things worse. Well, maybe next time I will try just have sugar and not any protein with it and try that next.

Was the milk cold or warmed up? Drinking a cold glass of milk with maple syrup really isn't as satisfactory for digestion as warm milk from my experience. One drink that's a favorite of mine before bed is a warm cup of milk (on the stovetop) with 2 tbsp of maple syrup, 1 tbsp of blackstrap molasses and a dash of salt. It calms me like nothing else.

 

[charlie]

Was the milk cold or warmed up? Drinking a cold glass of milk with maple syrup really isn't as satisfactory for digestion as warm milk from my experience. One drink that's a favorite of mine before bed is a warm cup of milk (on the stovetop) with 2 tbsp of maple syrup, 1 tbsp of blackstrap molasses and a dash of salt. It calms me like nothing else.

Nice. Gonna try it.

 

[Collden]

Starch promotes muscle glycogen storage which binds a lot of water so your weight gain might just be lean mass.

 

[Cirion]

@Cirion have you ever tried Kelj’s advice? It seems like you have a lot of restrictions & if you just let yourself eat what & how much of what you wanted, that might go a long way? Apologies if you have & it is mentioned earlier in this thread. I know you experiment a lot & are always tweaking things, which I really admire.

In my opinion, Kelj's stuff is more relevant to A.) people who are underweight due to things like anorexia, extreme calorie restriction and B.) people who are not grossly overweight. I am neither -- I eat plenty of calories, and am very overweight. She would disagree and say that being overweight means not eating enough (and actually to a degree, I actually do agree). BTW, I almost always eat the "minimum" guidelines according to her, so in a way I am already following it (3500+ calories a day minimum). We just disagree on food selection. Our main disagreement that foods that Ray clearly speaks against (PUFA, too much starch, too much tryptophan/cysteine etc) can be healing foods. I did briefly try eating "what I wanted" but I literally gained 10 lbs in a few days, and felt worse. I'm not eating in a fashion that makes me feel worse AND gain weight. Especially not when I spent the last 2 months losing 10 lbs, and I refuse to gain it back after the effort I've gone through to do so. If that is orthorexia, then so be it. The fact is, and this has been scientifically proven, not my theory, that just being overweight increases fatty acid oxidation, inflammation, increases catabolic turnover of proteins, reduces glucose oxidation, increases turnover of nutrients, increases lactic acid production, and increases chances of getting diseases/other disorders. I do agree that forcefully restricting calories is not the answer, but doing things that promote weight gain is a dangerous thing to recommend, especially to someone already overweight, and especially when it is unnecessary. You can eat lots of calories and not gain weight if they aren't PUFA, tryptophan/cysteine, starch etc. SO one thing mainstream medicine and mainstream fitness is correct about -- fat loss should be a goal. Where I diverge from mainstream is that fat loss should not be *THE* goal. Fat loss at all costs, is also not the answer. I am careful to try to achieve fat loss while still eating a respectable amount of food in general. Yes I had a few days where I cut out proteins, but I was still eating 3000 calories in the form of carbs.

Was the milk cold or warmed up? Drinking a cold glass of milk with maple syrup really isn't as satisfactory for digestion as warm milk from my experience. One drink that's a favorite of mine before bed is a warm cup of milk (on the stovetop) with 2 tbsp of maple syrup, 1 tbsp of blackstrap molasses and a dash of salt. It calms me like nothing else.

Cold. Yeah maybe you're right about warming it up.